LITMIR.BIZ

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her. Mrs. MacAndrew’s thoughts were flowing in the same direction as those of her daughter. She was wondering what farm the stranger might have in his mind; there was one to be sold shortly, not a mile from her own roof. If only he had returned a Sunday earlier! Still …

      She lost herself in speculations during the prayer that followed, and was only roused from them by the opening of the kirk door and the tramp of heavy boots climbing the gallery stairs. Up they came, and step by step the head of Auntie Thompson rose in a succession of jerks and was revealed to the worshippers below. Her glistening face was scarlet, for she had been engaged in a grim chase before starting on her walk and the steep stairs were the culmination of the whole. She stood still, panting audibly, while Alec held open the door of their pew, her grey wincey shoulders heaving and the monstrous erection, with its nodding feather and purple rose, pushed to one side. Most of those who looked up and saw her grinned. Mrs. MacAndrew turned her head away.

      When the temporary distraction was over, quiet fell on the kirk again and the service went on decorously. The sun shifted from the window near the stranger and the gleam of his tie-pin transferred itself to the spectacles that lay beside his neighbour; the sermon began and one or two settled themselves for covert sleep. The rustling of the Bible leaves which followed the giving out of the text was over when a tiny black shadow darted across the ceiling of the kirk and dived with incredible swiftness down to the floor, across to a corner below the gallery, out and up again, whisking past the sounding-board of the pulpit. Finally it flew up and disappeared into one of the gaping ventilators overhead. Only Alec and a few occupants of the side galleries noticed the awful change that had come over Auntie Thompson’s countenance.

      She was looking at the ventilator that had swallowed the bat with an expression of concentrated dismay. Her red face had lost its colour and her eyes stared. Her breath came in gasps. Alec, who knew her weakness, stared at the ventilator too, for he did not know what might happen if the creature should come out. For one moment she seemed petrified, and he was too slow at grasping an emergency to whisper to her the suggestion that she should leave the kirk. Some girls in the gallery who were watching the situation stuffed their handkerchiefs into their mouths as they looked at Auntie Thompson. The minister, who, though exactly opposite and on the gallery level, was short-sighted, preached on undisturbed.

      The bat shot out of the ventilator again like a flash of black lightning, and this time circled round the upper part of the building. Sometimes its circles were narrow and sometimes wide; once the angular wings almost brushed Alec’s face; the wind of them lifted a stray lock of his hair, and Auntie Thompson leaned back with a convulsive noise, like a sob, in her throat. It was loud enough to attract the people below and many looked round. MacAndrew, who was asleep, awoke. His wife and Isa were looking up at Auntie Thompson like a couple of cats watching a nest of young birds.

      The bat gave one of those faint, fretful chirrups peculiar to its kind and shot straight at the spot where the purple rose bloomed over Auntie Thompson’s agonised face. As an armed man draws his revolver in defence of his life, she snatched her umbrella and put it up.

      A smothered giggle burst from the gallery. Downstairs, the congregation, with a few exceptions, gazed up in horrified surprise; but the young stranger’s friendly neighbour, having put on his spectacles, sat wearing a delighted grin that displayed his one remaining front tooth. The minister paused in his sermon; he did not know what had happened, but he could see clearly enough that the rigid image in the middle of the gallery which weekly experience told him was Auntie Thompson had changed its shape, and that a dark blur enveloped the spot where a face had been. He went on manfully, raising his voice.

      Then the bat, in one of its wide sweeps, struck against the open umbrella. Auntie Thompson sprang up, and holding it slanting before her face, made stiffly, blindly, for the door. Her nephew opened it, and she passed out and disappeared from the public eye. Her heavy tread descended the stairs, and the tension which bound the assembly, as the plod of her boots marked each step of her descent, was only broken by the slam of the kirk door as she drew it to behind her. The sweat broke out on Alec’s forehead.

      At last the congregation got back its composure. The old man shut his mouth and the young suppressed their mirth. The faces of the MacAndrew family were set like stone; their sense of the outrage committed radiated from every feature and laid its chilly shadow on poor Alec across the whole space of the kirk.

      When the last paraphrase was sung he hurried downstairs. Not a look had Isa given him. She hurried out with her father and mother, and by the time the young man had reached the gate MacAndrew had grasped the reins from the boy in charge of the pony and the carriage with its load was starting homewards. The girl turned away her head, so that he saw nothing but the outline of her cheek and the drooping feather as they drove away. Mr. and Mrs. MacAndrew looked steadily at the horizon in front of them. Alec’s heart was hot with grief and wrath as he watched the absurd conveyance grow smaller and smaller in the distance.

      He did not wait to speak to anyone. His pride was bitterly hurt and his sense of injury was forcing him to action of some kind; he was not clever, but his instinct told him that matters could not stay as they were. They must either go forward or back. It was lucky for him that the insolence of his future family-in-law was so marked that it helped him to act and to forget the ache in his heart in healthy anger. A mean-minded man might have blamed Auntie Thompson for her innocent share in the catastrophe, but Alec had no meanness in him.

      He went past his own door without turning in, and on, up the Muir Road, until at the end of the four miles MacAndrew’s little farm, with its varnished gate and perky laurel bushes, came into sight. The house was like a child’s drawing in a copy-book; it had one window on either side of the door and three above. He approached boldly and knocked with his fist instead of pulling out the brass handle. He was not accustomed to bell-handles. Isa and Mrs. MacAndrew were watching him from behind a blind.

      ‘The impidence o’ him!’ exclaimed the latter, ‘aifter this mornin’—!’

      ‘If it was not for Mrs. Thompson, I’d like him well enough,’ sighed Isa, whose resolution was beginning to be a little affected by the sight of her lover.

      ‘He’ll need tae be done wi’ yon auld limmer afore he can hae vera muckle tae say tae us,’ rejoined her mother. ‘Isa, ye’ll no—’

      But she was cut short by the servant, who opened the door and thrust Alec forward.

      ‘Robina-Ann, a seat for Mr. Soutar,’ said Mrs. MacAndrew, determined to put all possible distance between herself and the visitor by her knowledge of worldly customs.

      The maid was bewildered. The room was full of chairs. There was a whole ‘suite’ of them in walnut.

      ‘Wull a be tae hurl yer ain chair in-by frae the kitchen?’ she inquired loudly.

      Confusion smote the party, only missing Alec, who took no notice of any chair, but stood in the middle of the room.

      Robina-Ann retreated before the eye of her mistress. The latter turned upon the young man. She meant to avenge the discomfiture dealt her by her servant on somebody.

      But he forestalled her.

      ‘Isa, what way would ye no speak tae me at the kirk? What ails ye at me?’

      ‘A’ll tell ye just now!’ exclaimed Mrs. MacAndrew, her gentility forsaking her. ‘A’ll warrant ye it’ll no tak’ me lang! A’m seekin’ tae ken what-like impidence brings ye here aifter the affront that Mrs. Thompson put upon the hale congregation!’

      ‘A’ve come tae see Isa,’ said Alec, the angry blood rising to his face.

      ‘Weel, yonder’s Isa!’ cried Mrs. MacAndrew, pointing a finger that shook with rage, ‘but ye’ll no get vera muckle guid o’ Isa! A’m no tae let a lassie o’mine waste hersel’ on a plough-laddie – a fushionless loon that maybe hasna twa coats till his back – a lad a’d be fair ashamed o’—’

      ‘O mamawe—!’ began Isa.

      ‘I’ll mamawe ye!’ shouted Mrs. MacAndrew, gathering rage from the sound of her own voice, ‘hey! gang awa’ oot

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